Commercial

Realising a commercial strategy usually involves a wide range of stakeholders, from suppliers to contractors and customers to regulators.

Ensuring that a customer proposition and underlying contracts are fit for purpose and don’t fall foul of commercial, consumer or competition laws requires sector-specific and overarching expertise, together with acute attention to detail.

From advising on ‘route to market’ strategies, such as agency, distribution, franchise and IP licensing through to business process outsourcing, sponsorship and consumer law (including regulatory investigations), we provide commercially savvy advice in a manner that helps you to cut through the complexities, manage risk and achieve your goals.

We can help to achieve ‘win-win' outcomes for clients and counterparties. We communicate clearly and succinctly. We will tell you if something is ‘market’ or not, and we don’t shy away from numbers.We will tailor our service to your needs, which might mean an end-to-end service on a complex project or a simple ‘red flag’ report of key risks.We stand out from many other law firms in having specialist commercial and consumer law experts whose deep experience is sector-specific and spans advising blue chip multi-nationals, start-ups, high growth businesses and investors.

The Perils of Poor Security

Competition watchdog’s open letter to the creative industries

12 September 2017

The UK’s Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) has published an open letter to the creative industries on competition law. The letter reminds businesses that certain conduct that undermines competition in those industries is illegal.

A milestone for R&D agreements?

06 July 2017

R&D agreements can often cover commercially significant and highly technical subject areas. In Astex Therapeutics Limited v AstraZeneca AB [2017] EWHC 1442 (Ch) the court has had to decide on the interpretation of an R&D agreement and whether certain “collaboration compounds” were within the scope of the agreement, triggering milestone payments or not.

The Unified Patent Court (UPC) is intended to provide a regional forum resolve patent disputes. At the moment, parties have to litigate patent disputes on a country by country basis across Europe, which is time-consuming, expensive and can lead to differing decisions in some countries. UPC decisions will have effect in all 25 states participating in the UPC, providing a single forum to resolve these disputes.

Service of a claim form on an agent - was it valid?

22 June 2017

In a recent case the High Court considered as a preliminary issue whether a claimant had validly served a claim form on what they considered was the agent of the claimant. The rules of service require that the defendant must be served at the place within the jurisdiction where it conducts business, or where it carries on its activities and which has a real connection with the claim. Therefore the question here was whether the agent’s office was a place at which the defendant conducted its business, or where it carried on its activities?

Competition watchdog turns the spotlight on to eCommerce

Will you pass the red face test? - Naming and shaming of late payers has now arrived

10 May 2017

From 6 April this year, all large UK companies (and limited liability partnerships) are now subject to a new regime which requires them to publish, on a Government website, detailed reports on their supplier payment policies and practices. The Regulations are designed to create public transparency of large businesses’ payment policies and practices, primarily for the benefit of small and medium-sized suppliers.